Biometeorology for Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change

Abstract

Biometeorology was first officially recognised as an emerging interdisciplinary science in August 1956, when Dr. Tromp and colleagues organized the first International Symposium of Biometeorology in the UNESCO Building in Paris. The meeting led to the establishment of the international society. The first issue of the societies' journal, The International Journal of Biometeorology, was published 5 years later in 1961. This volume was initiated to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the International Society of Bioclimatology and Biometeorology. In 1956, there were few interdisciplinary scientific societies and the idea of creating new disciplines at the interstices of well-established fields was not universally welcomed by established scholars and their scientific societies in meteorology and biology. One consequence of being viewed as somehow less scientific was that the emerging interdisciplinary groups tended to stress the importance of scientific rigour, sometimes at the expense of innovation and originality. This was reflected in the rapid crystallisation of biometeorology into specialised sub-fields, particularly human, plant, and animal biometeorology in the early decades. These groups attracted the interest of some applied meteorologists and climatologists, with their partners and collaborators drawn from traditional disciplines, i.e. health sciences for human biometeorology, and botanists, zoologists, agronomists, and related sciences for plant and animal biometeorology. These three sub-disciplines tended to dominate the Congresses of the International Society of Biometeorology held every 3 years, and the papers published in the journal. The Society flourished and its scientific rigour and respectability was established, although the interdisciplinary ambitions were not entirely fulfilled in the way imagined.